


Whisper like a Dream

by iwaizumemes (skytramp)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Found Family, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Telepathy, X-Men AU - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:58:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5071831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skytramp/pseuds/iwaizumemes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>When he sent the toss, too high, too fast, he heard it, just a flicker of thoughts, and doubt, and he knew they weren’t jumping. </p>
  <p> </p>
  <p>    <i>No way, King, I’m done. I give up.</i><br/></p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Whisper like a Dream

The moment when a person’s mutant powers manifest is, by its very nature, a violent occurrence. Many young mutants can’t handle the stress, and end up hospitalized or worse. Some cause destruction, some injure strangers, friends, family. 

Kageyama Tobio was different. It started as a headache, a pounding pain behind his eyes that wouldn’t dissipate no matter the method of treatment, and a volleyball. The ball rolled, just slightly, on the desk, and he could swear he’d done nothing but think about touching it. The sudden onslaught of pain in his head distracted him, and he hardly noticed that the ball flew across the room when he fell onto his sheets and clutched at his temples. After that day the pain was constant and uncontrolled, a pounding, then a tearing, then just a void as if his head was completely empty. 

It took weeks, and just when he’d adjusted to it, the voices began. They were more like whispers, fragments, partial ideas of the type that run through a person’s mind, but, while they were in his mind, they were _not_ his. 

The realization that maybe, just _maybe_ he was reading his teammate’s minds happened on the volleyball court. When he sent the toss, too high, too fast, he heard it, just a flicker of thoughts, and doubt, and he knew they weren’t jumping. 

_No way, King, I’m done. I give up._

And, though he really didn’t want it to, he expected the ball to hit the floor after he tossed. Instead, the sound of vinyl against hardwood never came, the ball never fell. He turned to look, and it was hovering, just a few inches above the court before it dropped. 

 

In the next few weeks, for once in his short life, volleyball seemed of little importance. Now that he recognized that the voices in his head were other people’s thoughts, he couldn’t shut them out, and he kept throwing unsuspecting things across the room without ever touching them. The thoughts were everywhere all the time. Crowds felt like a thousand people screaming nonsense in his ears. 

It was when he locked himself in his room and refused to come out that his parents finally took action. When the doorbell rang downstairs he didn’t expect anything other than yet another doctor, come to tell him that everything was just in his head, a series of hallucinations. When a voice rang out in his mind, clearly speaking to him, not just an errant thought, Tobio stiffened, shocked into confusion. 

_“Kageyama, my name is Ukai Ikkei, I am here to help you, will you come out?”_

It didn’t occur to him to disobey, and when he reached his living room he saw an old man with grey hair, looking almost frail as he sat by his parents, though his eyes had more fire than Kageyama had ever seen. Tobio bowed in greeting, and when the man greeted him aloud it was different, his voice not as smooth as the voice in Kageyama’s head had been, jilted with a twist in his mouth, as if he’d had a stroke. It occurred to him that he wasn’t sure the voice in his head had even been speaking Japanese, he only knew that he understood it. 

They spoke for a few minutes, and Ukai confirmed his personal suspicions about himself: He was a mutant, he was reading minds, and was probably telekinetic, and he didn’t belong where he was. Well, he hadn’t said he didn’t belong, but Kageyama felt that way, he felt like something that no longer fit in his world of middle school and volleyball, and when Ukai offered him a place in his school, in a rural part of the prefecture he’d never been to, Kageyama jumped at the opportunity. The worried and confused look in his parents’ eyes told him that they both didn’t feel like they could raise him and were more than a little relieved to see him go, even if they didn’t admit it to themselves. 

A few weeks of copious planning later found him in a dark sedan, driving through the tall wrought iron gates, down a long paved driveway that led to the largest house he’d ever seen. It was mid afternoon and the grounds were full of people. They were almost all teenagers, some sporting obvious physical mutations, every gender and race imaginable, though most seemed Japanese, and when he was close enough he heard their thoughts. 

They were happy. _Somehow_ , almost everyone here was happy. 

Professor Ukai, as he was called, led him to his dormitory, and when Tobio opened the door he saw his roommate stand up from his bed, looking frazzled. 

“Sugawara-kun,” Ukai greeted, when he walked in behind Tobio, Sugawara bowed. He looked Japanese, like many of the other students, despite the light hair falling in his eyes. 

“Hello professor.” Sugawara’s voice was soft, but he also seemed happy, like many of the others. It took Tobio until that moment to realize he wasn’t hearing either of their thoughts. 

“This is Kageyama Tobio. He’s to be your roommate, and I’d like you to show him around the school and grounds. He is also a telepath, the two of you will share some classes.” 

Sugawara simply nodded in response, and when the professor left, closing the door behind him, Tobio stood frozen near the empty bed. Now that they were alone the silence was deafening, both in the room, and in Tobio’s mind, he’d forgotten what it felt like to be alone with his thoughts. 

“Why can’t I hear you?” He blurted out.

“Because I’m not letting you. How old are you?” He smiled and something about it made Tobio want to smile too. It was soothing. 

“Fourteen, you?” He sat down on the bed and crisscrossed his legs in front of him. 

“Sixteen.”

“How can you block me?” 

“Probably because you’re not actually trying to read me. I’m not very good at it really, my powers aren’t particularly strong. But it’s something the professor taught me, mental defense.”

“Does that mean you can read my mind too?” In the months that he’d been reading the minds of strangers he had never realized just how disconcerting the idea that someone could read _his_ mind was. When he’d met Ukai it was obvious, something about the man had the aura that even if he didn’t already know everything about you, you would tell him if only he would ask. 

“Um.” Sugawara seemed shy now, nervous, and Tobio saw what looked to be a new redness in his cheeks. “Yes, I can. You’re wide open right now.” 

“Oh.” He wondered why Sugawara was embarrassed. 

The tour of the mansion took more than an hour. He was shown around the grounds, the gardens and basketball courts, there was even a volleyball net, though it was surrounded by sand, rather than the hard court he had played. The classrooms were on the first floor, and it seemed like many classes were in session. The place was still full, teeming with people, but Kageyama soon found if he focused on Sugawara, on his voice as he told some story about his first days here, he could block out the rest. 

In his first few weeks using Sugawara as a buffer became a common practice, and he learned he could do it from further and further away. When the voices around him were too much he would seek out his mind, the warm aura, somehow both open and closed, and the other voices would fade. He began learning how to control his powers as well. He had classes, both with the professor and with other teachers, who instructed him in defending his mind, controlling and blocking and even projecting his thoughts. 

It was late one night, a few months after he’d arrived, when Tobio first tested that. 

_”Hello, Suga?”_

He almost hadn’t expected a response, it was more than a half hour after lights out, and the boy could be asleep, or Tobio could have done it wrong. 

_”Kageyama?”_

The response was hesitant, but very clearly Suga. It was the first time he had heard his voice in his mind. 

_”Oh! It worked!”_

_”Of course it worked, you’re very good, you know.”_

Tobio smiled. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say really, and only one thing stuck in his mind. 

_”Thanks for being my friend.”_

It sounded cheesy, and it was definitely something he’d never say out loud, but he meant it, he wasn’t sure how he could have made it here without Suga. He was happy here, happier than he remembered being in a long time. He didn’t feel like an outsider any longer. 

_”You’re welcome.”_

He replied, and Tobio heard him roll over in his bed, presumably to sleep. He rolled over as well, facing the wall, and he dreamed of tossing volleyballs and bright smiles on Suga’s face.


End file.
